News from the Johns Hopkins Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

When Jill Leukhardt was an executive in a booming technology business a few years back, her bipolar II illness—which she didn’t know she had—dovetailed nicely with her job. “I was one of those determined to have it all,” she says. “I’d work until 2 or 3 a.m. because we needed the output. I loved it. And I’d routinely take the red-eye home from the West Coast to catch my daughter before she went to preschool.”

"Insomnia plagues people in huge numbers, and once the body has asserted an erratic sleeping pattern, it can be very hard to break. Sleep restriction therapy is one potential method of breaking such patterns

Insomnia is a serious sleep disorder which is frequently undiagnosed or untreated. Treatment options for those who seek help, however, are not clearly defined. The community of health care providers must communicate more effectively amongst each other to strike a balance between pharmacological interventions and the benefits of non-pharmacological treatments such as CBT-I.